‘Devil in a Blue Dress’

For writer-director Carl Franklin, adapting the first of Walter Mosley’s popular series of Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins detective novels, turns out to be a major accomplishment. This 1995 film is a fluid, persuasive piece of movie-making. Denzel Washington (pictured) has the sensitivity to play Easy Rawlins as a man of his era, a 1940s Negro who must of necessity leaven his heroic qualities (Showtime Monday at 8 p.m.).